


Widowers

by Nilozot



Series: Omega/omega [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alpha Jess, Children of Characters, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Hunters & Hunting, Intersex, M/M, Magic, Multi, Non-Traditional Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Omega Dean, Omega Sam, Omega/Omega, Parenthood, Past Abuse, Past Relationship(s), Sex Toys, Sibling Incest
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-21
Updated: 2015-09-24
Packaged: 2018-04-22 16:13:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,894
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4842002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nilozot/pseuds/Nilozot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Only months after Jess's death, Dean shows up at Sam's door with disturbing news from the hunter community. As they investigate a series of suspicious alpha deaths, it may prove impossible to avoid rekindling a long-buried relationship.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Dean and Noa

**Author's Note:**

> Dean and Sam are at the same ages as the pilot in this one, 26 and 22, and it takes places ten years after "August Heat" (which is not required to read to follow the story). Underage warning is for flashbacks and extensive discussion of past sexuality in a society where teenage bonding and pregnancy is normal. Dean and Sam's kids in the story are not sexualized.
> 
> In this world, omega males and alpha females are intersex, although alpha females are mostly infertile. There are no betas.

Only two months after Jess's body was sent in smoke to rest with the spirits, another hunter's spouse was killed. Dean dreaded making the call. For although he and Sam were at least on speaking terms now – having patched up, awkwardly, at Dad's funeral a year prior – it wasn't exactly the close relationship of their youth. But Sam needed to know the pattern, that hunter families were being picked off one by one.

So he didn't break the news over the phone.

“Hi, who is this?” a young, bossy voice said on the line. Dean's five-year-old niece, Thalia; naturally she'd pick up Sam's cell like that.

“It's Uncle Dean, Thales, and if you were practicing your letters you might have figured that out. Where's your papa?” Next to him in the driver's seat Noa giggled, so he winked at her and put it on speaker, to let her in on the game.

“He's, ummmmm… PAPA, UNCLE DEAN WANTS YOU ON THE PHONE.” Both Dean and Noa jumped at the _shriek_ coming across the line, and then his daughter began to laugh even more. Her charm necklace chimed as she moved, the delicate inscribed amulets rubbing together. Dean mock-hushed her with a zip across his lips.

“Yeah?” Sam's voice cut in over the phone. Emotionless, exhausted. Dean immediately felt a twinge of guilt at not calling more often over the past few weeks.

“Hey, Sammy, I've got a surprise for you. A little gift.”

“What is it, Dean? I'm not really in the mood for surprises today.”

 _You never are,_ thought Dean, but he tried to keep it light-hearted. “Well, okay, maybe more for Thalia than her grumpalump papa. From far, far away.” Noa giggled again, unable to keep quiet, and Dean could practically smell the suspicion through the airwaves.

“You two are right in front of my house, aren't you?” Sam said, after a pause.

Over the line Dean could hear Thalia squeal. A minute later she was racing out the door, and Noa jumped out of the Dean's decrepit RV at the same time. They flung their arms around each other for the first time in weeks, and then Thalia dragged her tall older cousin around to the back of Sam's student-housing bungalow.

The two girls barely resembled each other: Noa had inherited Rufus' dark skin and eyes, plus a browner version of Dean's wavy hair, while Thalia looked like a miniature blue-eyed version of fair Jess. And even though they had three years gap between them, Thalia's assertive alphaness was beginning to be evident in their play, unconsciously ordering around Noa in their games even though the latter was getting too old for five-year-old interests.

Might have just been Dean's imagination, though, or maybe it was merely their natural personalities. Who could tell, Noa might have ended up the sweet quiet one even if she had turned out alpha. Maybe it wasn't the greatest thing, to know whether your kid was an alpha or omega since before birth, instead of waiting until puberty for confirmation like the old days. Now folks felt free to speculate and stereotype all the way down in preschool. _Oh, look how she carries those dolls, what a great mother she'll_ _be_ _. Oh, look how she organizes th_ _ose_ _figurines, she'll make Admiral one day._

Sam came down the front steps of the house, crossing his arms with a blank look. Not pissed at their unexpected arrival, not happy, just the strained expression of one slowly trying to make it through each day. Still depressed and lonely from Jess' death, Dean guessed, and he sure as hell knew the feeling. When Rufus died five years ago, it was like a something had ripped in Dean's soul, even though he and his bondmate hadn't exactly had a love relationship for the ages. Theirs had been an arranged marriage, though, common in both the hunter community and ordinary society. Whereas Sam had bonded with Jess as a freely chosen match, making the rending of that bond all the more painful.

“Heeey Sammy, how are you doing?”

Sam blinked at him, unsmiling, but he held the door open for his brother to enter. “Same as always, Dean. You drop by just to let the girls play, or is there an ulterior motive for this visit?”

“Yeah. Let's sit and talk, bro.”

They walked through Sam's small book-filled house to the kitchen table, currently piled with student assignments. Dean always had to laugh at how much Jess and Sam's home really did look like what you'd expect when an honorable historian and less-than-respectable hunter mated into bastard domesticity. Books jammed on shelves on every wall, with the older more dangerous stuff higher up, so small prying eyes would have to work harder to get a peek. Framed posters with such titles as _Holidays and Festivals Throughout the World_ or _Census Map 1990 – Ethnic Group Distribution in California._ Beautiful small pieces of artwork nailed to the lintels of every door, until you got a good look at them and recognized they were eclectic amulets with tiny lettering or symbols or sometimes small pockets of dried herbs. Potted plants all over the place, which wouldn't have been unusual unless you realized they contained the exact same things that can and were grown outside in this area, protective aromatics such as hyssop, rosemary, Tulsi basil.

“You still teaching classes?” Dean asked, nodding towards the papers on the table.

“A few first-year comp classes, pretty low-level but it's a job. Finals are this week. Without Jess's position there's very little motivation to keep me on, but they've got sympathy right now, so...” He shrugged, as if the inevitable layoff of an unattached omega was not something to be concerned about. “They'll probably 'suggest' I start applying down at the elementary level by the end of the summer, I'd guess. At least my name is on the deed to the house.”

“What about Liam Moore? Doesn't he have any interest in putting in a good word for his son-in-law and granddaughter?”

Sam's face contorted into pure pain for an instant, and Dean immediately regretted prying. Professor Moore had been Sam's original intended bondmate, and clearly there was still some kind of bad blood between them. Dean had never heard the full story, although naturally rumors had flown after Jess had run off with Sam. The version Dean heard was that Dad had been forced to step in and mediate, and found out Sam was miraculously pregnant, and confirmed the bonding. Then everyone agreed to chill the fuck out in favor of stability for the wayward lovers and Jess' future career.

“Liam?” repeated Sam. “Liam made the generous suggestion that I go back to the original arrangement and marry him. He still hasn't taken another bondmate. And barring that, he's threatened to sue for custody of Thalia, as her closest living alpha relative. So I think it's safe to say he isn't rooting for my career advancement.”

“God, Sam, I'm sorry. Did you file for full custody? She's still pretty young, the courts favor the omega under certain...”

“I know, Dean,” Sam said, cutting him off. “All the papers have been filed. It's just that he can make my status even more difficult here at the university.” He leaned back in his chair, arms crossed as if to pull his mood inward again. “So that's my current tale of woe, what is it you drove all this way to tell me? All good news, right?”

Outside, they could hear the girls squealing on the swing set in the grassy backyard Sam shared with his block neighbors, probably all fellow omegas with small children, attached to various alphas at the university. Not dissimilar to the lower-class mobile camps where Dean generally parked, minus the ambitious academics shelling out for their low-rent suburban luxury. It was a rare twenty-year-old that didn't have a handful of young mouths to feed, except for the alpha women of course. Sometimes it seemed as if they were the only ones who had the system worked out, and as much as Dean loved his little girl, he envied their freedom.

“No,” Dean said, turning his attention back to Sam. “Sorry, man. Remember Hideki Catton and his bondmate? They came to you for some research, right?”

“The _yokai_ specialists from up north? Sure. Think that case turned to be a _mumiai_ instead. Damn ghosts do like to follow the migration of people.”

“Hideki's dead.”

“Okay,” said Sam, obviously not seeing the significance. “Hunters are driven nuts all the time, Dean. Playing with fire when you tamper with the other realms, and it's not exactly a growth profession.”

“This wasn't ordinary ghost sickness, Sam. Something cut his throat. Made to look like suicide.”

Sam snorted. “Spirits are immaterial, Dean. They can't just pop out of the ether and wave a knife around. Not even the fae or demons. Come on, any number of things could have wrestled control of him. Maybe it was unusually powerful. Maybe he just fucked up and let his mental wards slip.”

“Angles weren't right for suicide. Matsuo swears up and down he'd taken all precautions. Hideki never would have fallen for a straightforward _goryo_ , no matter how vengeful.”

“His bondmate was a witness? Was he there for the attack?”

“Mitsuo's fine. Their two kids are fine. He says he saw all the prep, and it should have been an ordinary dissipation.”

“Well, it probably just wasn't. The fae have been active in and around Shasta for a decade now. You know how difficult there are to deal with. Or it could be some syncretic Nipponi-Anglo cultural convergence? Some new kind of _d'ab_ working outside the Hmong? An animal-human transfiguration, like another Athapaskan _k'ilnadil_?”

Dean waved a hand, frustrated at Sam's random speculation. “You're not listening, it's not a damn _spirit._ Someone with an actual body came up, surprised them, and cut their throats. Leaving silver oxide traces behind.” He dug into his bag and tossed the coroner's report on the kitchen table in front of them for emphasis.

Dead silence for a moment, then Sam responded. “ _Them._ You mean, like Jess's office.”

“Yeah. And, uh, Jo. And Rufus.”

“Rufus? You were sure Rufus was taken by that vampire, Dean. You and Dad tracked it down and practically sterilized the entire graveyard.”

“I know. And now I'm not so sure. Rufus was the first one, we just thought he was cooking up some weird anti-glam mojo spell and it backfired. I mean, he used a shard of mirror, how vamp-like can you get? But it fits the pattern. There was silver there too, we just thought it was from the mirror backing or frame or something.”

“That was five years ago, Dean. No ordinary spirit is likely to maintain itself that long. Plus, that was, like, a thousand miles away. More for Jo.”

“ _Exactly_ , man.”

“So...you think something's hunting _us?_ Hunting the hunters?”

“The alphas, at least, yeah. If more omegas or kids were killed, it'd probably be more noticeable. The alphas do tend to get themselves into more trouble.”

“ _Jess_ wasn't off hunting,” Sam hissed. “She was sitting in her office reading research papers in a locked building! A student coming by for office hours found her, for fuck's sake.”

“C'mon, Sam, I know she was collecting mythology under the cover of 'historical research'. Bobby told me all about the _lamia_ job. You were both helping us, and it's not exactly a state secret where your family comes from, not among hunters. What if something we killed decided enough's enough, and it's gonna turn the tables on us? Not everything out there is a mindless ghost. Some of them are smart as hell, and they want to eat and love and fuck and live just as much as the rest of us.”

“An embodied monster? I dunno, Dean. Nobody's ever found solid evidence that they exist. Silver's a repellant, it's more likely that some delusional nutjob thinks that _we're_ the spirit that needs to be dissolved.”

“Not _us_. Just the alphas.” He paused and then added, “Must be an alpha itself, then. Because only they would think that people like us are shirking violets on the hunting front.”

Sam shifted in his seat with a huff. “I've barely done more than a simple ward since I was fifteen, Dean.”

“Not what I hear, bro. That's a helluva library out there, and you've been giving advice to everyone on the western seaboard for the past three years. Just like Dad wanted.” Dean slid the report across the table and Sam plopped down in a chair with a sigh. “Would you just take a look, professor? I know it sucks for you, but don't you want to know? Even it is some kind of crazy, don't you owe it to your wife to find them and bring them to justice?”

Sam pulled the folder towards him, but just then the kids chose to scamper in through the sliding back door, and he slammed the pile shut again like it was bitter poison.

“Papa, Noa's hungry,” Thalia announced. “Can we order pizza? For guests?”

Noa dropped her gaze with an embarrassed smile at the name mention, but then looked up with imploring eyes at Dean. Kid likely was hungry; they hadn't had more than prepackaged snack foods since breakfast, four hundred miles ago.

“Yeah, Papa Sammy, pizza sounds great,” Dean said, with his phoniest grin. Sam actually did have some sort of stew-like thing bubbling in a cooker on the counter behind them, but it was hardly enough for four. Plus it was probably disgustingly healthy.

Sam rolled his eyes, but still picked up the phone.

* * * * *

After refueling the girls had their impish energy back, and so did Dean. He left his brother to brood over Hideki's police file and Dean's personal notes about Rufus and Jo, and went outside to play a mean game of flag-rugby with the neighborhood gang of kids until dusk. After driving all day, he needed to move, and it was good for Noa too. Despite being on the shy side, she'd long ago learned how to instantly integrate into new groups. The local omegas never objected to another child floating into the pack; most places, alphas with young teen and twenty-something mates congregated together for support and commiseration of their mutual poverty, and there were always enough omegas around to keep an eye on the new kid. Occasionally, on nights like these, Dean even returned the favor.

Dean sent the giggling girls off to change into PJs and brush their teeth. Sam glanced up to note their entrance, and managed to give Thalia a smile and a kiss goodnight. But as soon as the kids rounded the corner, he was frowning again in stress and concern.

“So,” said Dean, flipping a leg onto a backwards chair, “you still think I'm being paranoid?”

“Could be something,” Sam admitted. “We should probably call around, collect a complete list of any alphas killed while in the line of hunter duty over the past few years. Omegas, too, I guess, maybe there's a bigger pattern here.” He rubbed the back of his neck, looking both exhausted and distracted.

“Tomorrow. After you snore the morning in, Sammy, 'cause you look like your about to fall over. When was the last time you got a decent night's sleep?”

“I'm _fine,”_ Sam said sharply, which didn't answer the question. In fact, on closer inspection he didn't look so much actual sleepy as… agitated and uncomfortable with a side dose of aura depletion. Moreso than even three hours ago.

“Dude, are you going into _heat_?” Dean exclaimed. “What the hell, man, if you needed ovulation suppressants, just say so. I can always get more.” Dean was registered in no fewer than five states, plus had picked up the scripts for several omega spouses that had died. He was practically the walking birth control dispensary of the hunter community. Especially for teenagers, he was always slipping them a few extra pills on the sly.

“I'm a college teacher, Dean, I can get a damned script,” Sam snapped. “We've just … we never used them. I sort of forgot about it. Cycles have been getting less intense anyway.”

“Oh,” said Dean. Then, carefully, “You'd been trying for another?” Thalia's surprise conception had been at the bonding, when omegas were pretty much at peak fertility; most of the time, alpha females just didn't produce enough sperm to make fertilization likely.

“Well, yeah,” Sam said, fidgeting in his seat. “I mean why not? We tried both ways, you know, sometimes it seemed … possible. Like my heats would put her into heat too.”

Dean tipped his head, trying to wrap his brain around that one. An omega siring a child, while not unprecedented, was definitely weird. But then what did he expect from the couple that had defied tradition in every other way, including the one that said alpha women shouldn't bother getting hitched? That people like Jess and little Thalia should focus on their careers, giving back to society as a whole instead of selfishly wasting effort on shaky bondings and improbable children?

“Why not?” Dean finally said. “Because omega heats suck without an alpha, that's why not. I still can't believe you're twenty-two years old and have never been knotted.”

Sam huffed in a breath of disgust. “Alpha _males_ you mean, and you're wrong. They don't suck at all when you've got someone to go through it with. Hire a babysitter, lock yourselves in the bedroom for a couple of days, _loads_ of fun. In fact I seem to remember you were up for plenty of alpha-free fun before you were bonded.”

“That was just fucking around, Sammy, you know that. Teenagers will be teenagers, and we _definitely_ were teenagers.”

“But now we're not, and I don't have anyone. Somehow I forgot.”

Sam shot up then and retreated to his bedroom, shutting the door to his room before Dean could reply. The thought still came unbidden: _You've got me, and I don't have anybody either._

But that line of thinking was childish, the product of an era long dead. Sam was right, they were both parents now, not horny kids, bonded although their mates were both gone. And it hadn't been Dean's responsibility in a long time to take care of Sam. He sure as hell wasn't some alpha substitute.

The prospect of a full heat, though, without his bondmate's pheromones to temper it, was going to _suck._ And probably render Sam useless on the hunting front for at least a few days, even if Dean could convince him to take off work beyond the weekend. He doubted the university was going to be overly pleased with a single omega going into heat months after their spouse died, either; it was a massive distraction for students and fellow faculty alike, and a sign of irresponsibility. What was Sam _thinking?_

Dean crept over to Sam's door and listened for several minutes, barely breathing, to make sure his brother wasn't in some unendurable pain. Then he padded away to the tiny guest room, effectively an enclosed porch off the back. The room was equipped with a pull-out bed from one of the sitting benches, surrounded by potted plants. In the winter the porch was cold as fuck, practically like camping outside, but this time of year it functioned as a greenhouse, effusing warm light at crankily early hours in the morning. The enchantments were inadequate for permanent sleeping quarters, but that was mitigated by the herbal musk of dozens of rare tropical medicinal plants filled the cooling air, with the spicy undertone of garlic that had been strung up to look innocently ornamental.

 _Done nothing but wards since fifteen? My ass,_ thought Dean. Even if he wasn't out on the front lines, Sam was clearly putting his mage-levels of knowledge to good use. He wondered, briefly, how much Jess had really known about Sam's childhood before she died. Dean already regretted that they'd so rarely come out here, for now he'd never get to know her. But after Rufus died, so close to little Thalia's birth, he had left Sam alone. It was enough to survive with his own family without burdening Sam's, or so his grieving logic went.

The green room bed had already been pulled out and contained two little bodies, piled on top of one another like puppies. Dean didn't blame them, for the screened porch was the coolest part of the house at night. He considered trading places and crashing in Thalia's tiny bedroom, but then decided if the kids didn't care, neither did he. Dean kicked off his shoes and crawled on top of the covers next to them, dirty travel clothes and all, and curled next to Noa's back. It wouldn't be long now before this sort of thing was inappropriate – how had over half of his baby's childhood flown by already? – but for now, Noa climbed into his bunk in the motor home as often as not, sometimes with the excuse of nightmares, but usually she just said please, papa? Dean never said no. It was only the two of them, alone against the world, how could he say no? Well, tonight, with the addition of a mini-alpha interloper.

Dean leaned over and whispered a short blessing in each child's ear. Then he kissed both of them on their foreheads, and fitfully drifted off.

 


	2. Sam and Jess

In his room Sam was sweltering, but he didn't dare open a door or window. Dean would take care of the kids if someone woke up, so he completely stripped, including ridding himself at last of the constricting bands over his aching breasts. He lay back against the coolish sheets, trying to decide what to do with himself. Dean was right: Why hadn't he thought ahead, and acquired some hormones to forestall the inevitable? Fucking body, betraying him once again.

Sam clutched the sheets underneath him and tried to breath, but eventually realized that ignoring the problem or trying to meditate it away wasn't going to work. The pressure had been building all afternoon, but with Dean stopping by he was distracted and irritable, and unable to give himself some incremental release. Jess would have noticed at least a day earlier; she's got not only sharp senses but also just payed attention to the tiny details. _Had,_ that is. Had sharp senses.

Even after two months, he still couldn't believe it when he woke up in the morning and she wasn't there. His mind refused to comprehend that this was _forever,_ she wasn't just gone for a run or a quick trip to the store or working late. Sam could live to be a hundred and she would never come back, like Mom, like Dad, like a dozen other hunters they had known. Dean was the only one left standing, and him. Now maybe something would come for them, too eventually, especially when it figured out that when it came to malevolent spirits, neither one of them were going to whimper and hide in a closet waiting for their alpha savior like a bad adventure novel. The hunter community didn't work that way, and neither did a lot of shaman traditions serving the same functions as hunters throughout the world. So whoever it was, they either didn't know that, or had a grudge specifically against alphas and didn't care.

Sam bent over the side of his bed and slid out a locked box from underneath it. After a little fumbling with the padlock, he pulled out a few toys and dropped them on the bed beside himself. He didn't deliberate over the decision much, but grabbed the first large dildo within reach and shoved it in, not even bothering with lube. He just needed something to relieve the incessant pressure while he masturbated. Legs wide, it did feel good, even though he hadn't done anything fancy like find an inflatable knot. _Fuck_ omega physiology, he thought for the thousandth time. Further proof the universe was a grand cosmic joke. Spirits bless whoever invented silicone, though.

He didn't touch his small cock at first, but instead slowly moved the dildo in and out, imagining his lost wife fucking him with it. Usually she built him up slowly, torturing him with bigger and bigger toys while she made him come periodically without touching any other part of his body. He felt it in his whole body then, every muscle trembling as he begged for some other type of release. Then Jess would likely climb on top of him for some kissing and touching, and more extensive body teasing, and maybe order him to edge her along for awhile until they were both desperate to come.

Only then would she fuck him with the special strap-on, designed to deposit whatever semen she had right up against his cervix, making a game of trying to orgasm at exactly the same time. Or sometimes they'd switch at that point and try to get _her_ pregnant, joking about new miracle babies and how much they'd rue the sleepless nights if it ever happened, because hey, you never knew. The experts said it was a hundred to one against her ever conceiving with an omega, but they were young and horny and enthusiastic, and they'd beaten the odds before.

Compared with all that, laying there jerking off seemed so lonely and pathetic. He did the deed quickly, for what little relief it would give him and no comfort.

Now less wound up, Sam had time to think about the situation a little more clearly. Dean was here, and it brought back all those memories of their childhood he'd wanted to repress. He loved beautiful Noa, and he loved Dean, but the way his brother was raising her appalled him sometimes. A motor home wasn't quite as bad as an endless series of motel rooms, but almost as disruptive, and he must be leaving her with local omegas for childcare an awful lot. Obviously Dean didn't give a damn about her education or socialization, except to be a hunter, or at least a hunter's spouse.

Jess and Sam had sometimes discussed inviting them to come live with them, especially after Dad had died, and now maybe that was more of a possibility. At least give them a home base to work from. He knew it was too much to ask of Dean to leave Noa with him permanently. He'd certainly never give up Thalia no matter what the circumstances, so he couldn't blame Dean for acting the same way.

Dean's presence during his estrus cycle was...alluring, in a disturbing sort of way. Sam'd never told Jess exactly how far they went in their childhood play, only that he'd fooled around a lot with other omegas, which was technically true. Didn't tell her there were weeks that went by where Sam would beg Dean to fist him every day to fake a knot, or that it was pretty routine for the two of them to sneak away somewhere private every morning to suckle each other's breasts down, so they could face school without so much leaking. He didn't say that Dean had a magical repertoire of ways to make him come, and that it was a rare thrilling victory to turn the tables on his older brother and make him squirm for once. He never told anyone that the day Dean was bonded to Rufus Turner, when Sam was fourteen, he was so depressed and angry that he snuck off and let some strange alpha bend him over and knot him, condomless, just to hurt himself and know what it felt like. Because that was his future, the only future that seemed possible.

She wouldn't understand, and he didn't always understand it himself.

Jess was an only child, and more importantly, an alpha without heats. Sex was entirely recreational for alpha women: Most of the fun, without the cravings or risk. Get a condom, fuck some unattached alpha male without the slightest suggestion of commitment, go your separate ways. Or, equally popular, set up some kind of sexual stress-relief relationship with your alpha female friends, all of whom were just as uninterested in disrupting their careers as you were. That's what Sam had observed, anyway, as he watched Jess during his first year living with the Moores, a year ahead of him at university.

It was like a different planet from the way he grew up, and not just because of the hunter stuff. Omegas were a minority at school at that level, maybe twenty percent of the student body, most of them either gifted young dependents like himself, or older parents returning to school with the permission of their spouses. Breeding omegas simply did not attend universities of that caliber. Everyone knew, then, that Sam was only there at the sufferance and support of his intended bondmate, Professor Liam Moore.

Sam studied harder than he ever thought possible in all the dinky lower schools he'd attended with Dean. Partially that was a function of timing – he needed to cram as much education as possible in before the bonding and pregnancy, after which he'd be required to take at least a year off, and probably longer, depending on the whims of his bondmate. But the other, secret reason he spent all his waking hours in the library was more nefarious: to keep away from Liam Moore altogether.

Technically, Moore could have legally claimed Sam at any time past age fifteen. But the public arrangement with Dad was for Sam to study for at least two years and that the bonding not take place before age seventeen, and Moore was judged to be concerned with his reputation enough to honor the agreement. Dad wanted a loremaster out of the deal, someone to advise the hunter community on the bewildering variety of creatures that were popping up on the State's multicultural shores, and also act as liaison between the academics, mainstream religion, and semi-underground folk movements like the hunters.

Dad's plan would have been so much easier if Sam had been an alpha, either female or male. But he wasn't. And no decent school was going to allow an unbonded omega to run around unsupervised, no matter how smart they were. Even seventeen was pushing it, although the invention of ovulation suppressants had reduced public muttering about omega distraction for the alphas.

So here was Sam, fifteen years old, cut off from his family and placed under the control of a Professor of Mythological Literature. It should have been exciting, and at first it was. The Moores had so many books! And a real house with flowers in the yard, and actual family dinners in which guests were invited over and Liam's pretty daughter and his friends got into spirited academic arguments with each other. Sam had never been in an environment like that, where _thinking_ and study and discussion were not only encouraged but practically a competitive sport. And Sam was thrilled to discover that he, too, could play along.

And Jess too: Truth be told he fell for her almost instantly, although the feeling wasn't mutual, at least in the beginning. Sam was still a beanpole runt at that point, getting taller every day but his babyface not looking much older, and Jess treated him as an intriguing little brother at first. She was fascinated by hunter culture and exploits, so far from the dry abstraction of academia. Ghosts and demons and fae were real, not just superstitious rumors! Sam regaled some of the best stories, both from his brother and father and some of the legendary mental battles that were passed among families and through the generations. He taught her meditation and focus, and a bit of natural magic that could be used to deter etheric larvae and the like. Nothing heavy, but enough to keep an ordinary healthy young person firmly on the side of safety from the beings of the other worlds

Sam thought he was safe enough himself. But it turned out the spirits weren't the main thing to worry about. Liam began to visit him at night, and the whole arrangement turned into a secret nightmare.

He'd been at the Moores for almost a month when the first real heat came along. Liam had given him a subdose supply of suppressants, enough to make ovulation and pregnancy unlikely, but not enough to fully stop the heats. That should have been Sam's first clue, but he was used to cribbing off Dean's haphazard supply throughout puberty, so he didn't think about it. Sam was standing in the kitchen, alone, trying to concentrate on cooking dinner and ignoring the familiar compulsion to retreat to the nearest bathroom and find something – his hand, the most desperate and likely outcome – to fuck himself to relief. Liam silently came up behind him and grabbed him close, burying his face in Sam's neck.

“Mmm, almost ripe. Haven't tasted young omega in ages, so you will be a real treat. Bet you can't wait to be fucked by a real knot for once.”

Sam hadn't even _thought_ about getting knotted, not now. Except for that one time the previous year, when he'd been feeling so bad he didn't care if someone used him as their personal masturbation device, the only sex he'd ever had was with Dean. His brother, who as gruff and bitchy as he could be sometimes, fundamentally worshiped Sam and Sam's body and made every effort to see that relief of puberty's hellish urges was tops on his list. Dean never talked like this, like Sam was his possession to be dominated and controlled and fucked into submission. But with Liam standing there, arms around him, Sam was too terrified to say no or wriggle away.

“Should I wait until tonight, or maybe we should turn that off and go straight to the bedroom right now? That little cunt of yours must be desperate for filling,” Liam continued, rubbing Sam's neck for his full scent.

“Wait,” Sam choked out. He really meant _wait_ _wait_ _I'm not seventeen yet,_ but all that came out was a reflexive, “Please, sir.”

“Very well,” laughed Moore, and he released Sam's hair. “You're right, we should fuel up first. Don't look so worried, little one, it's just practice for later, not the real bonding. You'll love it, all omegas do. It's what you were made for.”

The horrible thing was, part of Sam's body _did_ love it. When Liam pushed into him that first time later in the evening, not only did it not hurt, it felt amazingly _right_ , like his body really was created for no other purpose than to wrap around that enormous cock and have it pound into him. He came hard just as the knot began to swell up, as hard as with any toy, and again in a lighter, more diffuse way after Liam's semen exploded inside him and cemented them together. The latter was an etheric new sensation, something like the oxytocin-soaked nipple-orgasms Dean could wring from him, but with a fuzzy light-headedness instead of a deep cuddled love.

But as he floated down, another part of Sam was repelled, that conscious part outside his body looking down in disgust at his own uncontrollable reactions. Something in the way Liam called him “delicious” or “the perfect cunt” made Sam want to crawl out of skin. As time went on, he got rougher, and more critical when Sam didn't come at the time or circumstances he thought he should. He rarely touched Sam anywhere except to fuck him, no matter how much his breasts swelled and needed release, or how hard his cock got. The roughness extended to times outside of his heat cycle, when Sam wasn't nearly so automatically aroused, and he'd end up sore and limping the next day. Liam seemed to like two things about him only: his scent and his cunt, and any others needs Sam had to deal with himself.

Sam thought about calling Dean and spilling the whole terrible dilemma, but Dean had his own stresses to handle. Noa was only a few months old, and Dean was struggling with his role as a parent and his desired position as a hunter. He thought about telling Jess, who had pretty much taken Sam under her wing on campus. But it was too awkward and weird to discuss, even for their free-flowing relationship, so open on every other topic. Sam didn't want to sound like an ungrateful omega bitch, which is exactly how a lot of folks – including, he was sure, Dad – would interpret the situation. Sam was getting an education, a home, reputation, status, connections to a job, and a family, and he was whining about not liking the way his alpha slept with him? Ridiculous.

This went on for over a year, and as Sam's seventeenth birthday ground closer, he became ever more furtive and anxious, hiding out in the library every day of the week until the wee hours of the morning. When the inevitable heats rolled around he submitted with terror, sure that the exposure to Liam's semen had to be building up, and any round now he would end up permanently bonded and pregnant. Sam began hording his meager supply of suppressants and popped them all at once right after they had sex, in a makeshift version of the morning-after pill. Unfortunately that resulted in the heats coming on with hellish intensity, more and more frequently as the year progressed.

Finally one night Jess tracked him down deep in one of his hiding places in the stacks, only a day before yet another heat. He could feel it coming on, like a great fiery weight pressing on his chest and abdomen and extending between his legs. Jess held his hand, and looked him straight in the eye and asked him, “Do you want to marry my father?”

For once, Sam admitted the truth. He shook his head 'no.'

“There are alternative arrangements that could be made, you know,” she said, and caressed his jawline in a soft, utterly non-possessive manner. Then, after gauging his reaction, she bent forward with a kiss.

It was sensuous and deep, unlike anything he'd ever experienced before. Sam would reflect that it could very well count as as his first kiss, the first real one, for even Dean had been reluctant to cross that emotionally fragile line, even though he'd sucked on literally every other square piece of real estate on Sam's body. Jess kissed him the way the alpha girls made out with each other, with passion and verve and for the pure mutual fun of it. Sam could do anything at that moment, submit, respond with enthusiasm, ask her to slow down, walk away, and all of those choices were equally acceptable, without the burden of preexisting expectations or judgment. She had no idea what a luxury that was, what a gift.

Later – much later, after the dust had settled and it turned out they'd hit the pregnancy jackpot in a spectacular way – Jess would laughingly admit that she hadn't thought too far ahead at what exactly sex during an estrus cycle could result in. She only thought Sam looked miserable, that he was her friend, that he deserved to finish off school at his own pace and not be dictated by some foolishly archaic societal custom, and that her Dad was being a possessive jerk. She wasn't making some kind of grand _political statement_ for crying out loud, it just sort of turned out that way. It just turned out that not only did Sam not want to walk away, he rather enthusiastically wanted to keep going. Omegas falling into heat weren't exactly Jess's area of expertise back then, although as usual she proved to be a quick study.

They didn't go home that night, or over the weekend for that matter. Sam didn't bring his overdose of suppressants. By the time John had been called in and hunted them down to a friend's vacation cabin five days later, it was far too late.

 

* * * * *

 

Back in the present, Sam couldn't look back at that time without paralyzing grief at his loss. Let the heat come. Let him be desperate and fall apart and desire something that would never exist again. Let it hurt, until nothing hurt anymore.

 _Twenty-two years old and never been knotted._ If Dean had an inkling of the truth. Sam had full knowledge of what it felt like, that seductive loss of control, where you could let your psyche sink into oblivion and let your animalistic body – and by extension your alpha – do what it wanted. He knew it, and rejected it to take a chance on a different sort of relationship. Some people didn't even believe alpha females were capable of bonding to omegas. Their souls were different, so the popular argument went, incompatible with either omegas or the alpha males, and meant for a higher purpose than reproduction. The two of them had created a brand new person to prove everyone wrong. What did Dean know of preferences unfettered by pheromones or drugs, of choices, of love?

Could his brother even remember back that far?

 


End file.
